Red is new black

A coral red, exactly. Not a bright computer red, but its softened version. I don’t know is it just me, but recently I observe a huge increase of using this shade of red in web design, either as an accent color, or as a flat background.

Pertaining to the color psychology this is a color of passion, love, sometimes anger. It’s strong, it relates to our physical strength. Creates a feeling of excitement and desire. It has always been used as a color highlighting the call to action, and also as warning color (in all kinds of internet warnings). But this softened version? I have always been hesitant to take color psychology seriously when it doesn’t take the hues and shades into account. Everything I said is true, when we speak about the real red (I mean #ff0000, for geeks ;). But a coral red? For me – it’s passion, but without the anger, it’s love, without a warning, it’s strength, but not aggression. I personally think we feel it all intuitively, and designers, softening the red, wanted to take out all the negative emotions. What do you think?

Let’s take a look at the websites using this color:

In the background:

As strong accent color:

Red Typography:

As you can see, I couldn’t resist it too. I like it. It’s brigt, vibrant, and full of energy. It adds light to the design, and helps to make selected parts stronger. When I was designing this website I didn’t like the design, and for quite a long time I have been revising and changing things to make it better. Nothing helped until I added a splash of red. It works! Check your designs, maybe it will work for you too!